Ella Mae Morse

New York Times

Published
4:00 am PDT, Tuesday, October 19, 1999

Ella Mae Morse, the sultry, swinging pop-jazz singer whose 1942 hit "Cow-Cow Boogie" became the first million-seller for the fledgling Capitol Records and helped establish the label, died Saturday of respiratory failure. She was 75 and lived in Bullhead City.

A true original, Ms. Morse belted an exuberant mixture of boogie- woogie, blues, jazz, swing and country that transcended genres.

Her 1946 recording of "House of Blue Lights" is considered influential in the evolution of rock 'n' roll. Among her other hits were "Shoo- Shoo Baby," "Mister Five by Five," "No Love, No Nothin'," "Milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet," "The Patty-Cake Man" and her million- selling 1952 comeback hit, "The Blacksmith Blues."

Ms. Morse was born in 1924 in Mansfield, Texas. Her father, George Morse, a drummer from England, led a small dance band, and her mother, Ann, a native Texan, played ragtime and Dixieland piano. By age 9, Ms. Morse was singing with her father's band in nightclubs. When the family moved to Paris, Texas, she became a friend of an elderly black guitar player who taught her the blues and became a major influence on her style.

At 13 (but claiming to be 19), Ms. Morse auditioned for Jimmy Dorsey's band in Dallas. She won the job, but had to quit when her charade was discovered. Moving to San Diego, she was reunited with Freddie Slack, Dorsey's pianist, who had quit the band to strike out on his own as a leader.

He hired her to be his vocalist just as the band was signed by Johnny Mercer and Glenn Wallichs to be the first artists on their new label, Capitol Records. Their first recording, "Cow-Cow Boogie," was a novelty song.

After the song leaped to the top of the pop charts, Ms. Morse was signed to Capitol as a soloist and remained there for the next 15 years. Many of her hits were even more in the rhythm-and-blues than in the pop market, and many fans didn't know whether she was black or white. (She was white.) In 1946, she reunited with Slack to record the seminal "House of Blue Lights."

After taking several years off to start a family, Ms. Morse returned to the Capitol studios in 1952 to record "The Blacksmith Blues." Although she stopped recording in 1957, she continued to make occasional appearances, including a 1970s tour with Carter's band and an annual engagement at Disneyland with Ray McKinley's band.

In 1984, she made a series of club appearances in Los Angeles, and in 1987, she appeared at Michael's Pub in New York. Two years ago, her complete body of work was released in a five-CD box set by Bear Family Records.